1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a test apparatus and a setting method therefor. More particularly, the present invention relates to a test apparatus for testing an electric device, and a setting method for setting a signal input-output unit included in the test apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional test apparatus instructs a test controlling unit to read setting conditions in response to test items from a disc device, and to transmit the setting conditions to a channel connected to an electric device in order to perform setting. Although such test apparatus repeatedly tests electric devices of the same type, it reads the setting conditions from the disc device, and transmits the setting conditions to the channel via a system bus each time it tests, and thus it takes the test apparatus much time to read data from the disc device and transmit the data.
Accordingly, in order to reduce the test time, it has been known a test apparatus includes an instruction analyzing unit for analyzing an instruction from the test controlling unit and setting the condition of a channel as disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 1995-218602 (Patent Document 1). The test apparatus disclosed in this conventional art transmits and stores the setting condition of the disc device in a memory included in the instruction analyzing unit via the system bus prior to the test. And the test controlling unit transmits the setting condition to the instruction analyzing unit via the system bus to transmit and set the setting condition to the channel.
However, the test apparatus disclosed in the Patent Document 1 can only transmit the same setting condition to a plurality of channels, but not transmit different setting conditions to the channels, when setting the channels connected to one instruction analyzing unit. In addition, the test apparatus disclosed in Patent Document 1 cannot set or change the number of the condition data in response to the test items.